SASHAPASHA is a Helsinki-based artistic duo created in 2009 by Sasha Rotts and Pavel Rotts. They joined the Godzilla journey from Karlskrona to Visby. They work with various media: installation, performance, painting, textile, sculpture, sound, video, etc. In their practice they use personal and collective memory and microhistory. Among their topics are the legacy of the Soviets in contemporary culture, the historical trauma of the Gulag system, and the memory of WWII.

During their residency they travelled to Gotland with Godzilla to install their duo exhibition ’The Perfect Match’ at Galleri Apoteket.

The exhibition is a mixture of two projects interconnected with each other. The five-year project KANAVA explores the labor camps of the Soviet Gulag and the White Sea-Baltic canal in Northwest Russia built by its inmates. The Fragile Narratives -project is based on the history of migration of Ingrian Finns caused by WWII, their family stories and childhood memories. The exhibition is based on a true story from WWII. Ingrian Finns, who were doomed to be deported to the USSR at the end of the war, were escaping to Sweden by any means. Pavel’s Ingrian family didn’t avoid deportation, but some of their relatives reached the Swedish shore illegally, smuggled by fishing boats. Swedish-Ingrian writer Ania Monahof’s family sailed from Finland to Sweden but was caught in a storm and washed ashore. They realized they had safely reached Sweden only when they found a box of Swedish matches. SASHAPASHA joined Godzilla on the Baltic Sea to arrive in Gotland by water like the Ingrians 80 years earlier.

SASHAPASHA works extensively in Nordic-Baltic countries. The Baltic Sea is the arena of their projects.